Verizon Does Well; Still Behind AT&T on iPhone

An employee holds out an iPhone for a customer at a Verizon store in Boston, Massachusetts February 10, 2011. Photo: Reuters

Despite strong profit and revenue growth, Verizon Wireless still trails its rival AT&T in terms of iPhone activations according to its latest earnings statement.

The company released its second quarter earnings statement this week, which was highlighted by profit of $1.61 billion or 57 cents a share. This is a significant gain from the year ago quarter when it was $1.19 billion, or 42 cents a share. Revenue also grew significantly, up 2.8 percent percent from last year to $27.54 billion.

In terms of earnings growth and the acceleration of revenue growth, this has been one of Verizon's best quarters since the 2008 economic downturn, The company's Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg said in a statement.

The results beat analyst expectations of 55 cents a share on revenue of $27.42 billion, according to a poll from Thomson Reuters.

Smartphones, the iPhone in particular, helped drive the company's growth in the last quarter. However, the company's 2.3 million iPhone activations in the last quarter was significantly less than AT&T's. Although, Gartner analyst Phillip Redman told Dow Jones Newswire that this likely has to do with AT&T selling a cheap version of the 3GS more than anything else.

Overall, Verizon definitely had strong results. At least half of the AT&T phones sold probably were the $49 3GS phone, a low-end phone compared to the iPhone 4. Verizon probably sold more iPhone 4 phones than AT&T in the quarter, Redman said.

In addition, Verizon added more a lot more contract customers than AT&T with 1.26 million subscribers joining Verizon and only 331,000 added by AT&T. The company said this was in large part due to its 4G network. The company says moving ahead, 4G will add even more new customers.

Meanwhile, Seidenberg is actually close to the end of his tenure at Verizon Wireless. Verizon Chief Operating Officer and President Lowell McAdam announced he would be taking over as CEO starting on August 1st.

Shares of Verizon still slipped after the results were announced, dropping 2.82 percent or $1.06 per share.